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As I was thinking about a possible Valentine’s Day-themed story for the paper this year, I recalled a YouTube video my husband and I watched recently.

It went through a myriad of topics using data to show how certain things have changed around the world in recent decades. One of the topics that stuck with me was how couples meet now compared to back in the 1930s.

Courtesy / Data is Beautiful

According to the data they used from the majority of couples in the ‘30s were meeting through family, 22.76%, closely followed by school at 22.55%, and 18.58% met through friends, with the remaining percentages meeting through neighbors, church, at a bar or restaurant and so forth.

While we obviously all know the world is very different than it was nearly 100 years ago, as I watched the video of the graph progress through the decades it kind of shocked me just how drastically things changed in this category.

By the time it reached 2024, all those other percentages were almost nonexistent on the graph, because meeting online was how nearly 61% of couples met. The next highest was through friends at 13.86%, followed by coworkers at 8.48%.

We all are well aware of how much the rise of the internet and social media has changed all sorts of aspects of life, but I was still blown away by how greatly that was impacting something like dating and relationships.

Courtesy / Data is Beautiful

This got me thinking about how couples I know have met in recent years compared to the stories my parents and their friends have told about how they met back in the '80s and '90s, and just how different things are now.

Doing a little poll of my friend circle, I was surprised to find how many of them met through dating apps and are now happily in long-term relationships or married. Others primarily met through friends or in common spaces such as work, school or church.

My husband Nathan and I, both in our 30s, met in the 2010s era through mutual friends, but since he lived in Tennessee at the time, the majority of our dating life in those early days was through a lot of online video chats due to the long distance. So, I guess we fall into the friends category, but we definitely wouldn’t have become a couple without the help of the internet, so we have a little bit of both to thank.

This tracks with the data for that decade, as the majority of people — 24.5% — met through friends, with 20.7% meeting online.

For much of the '70s through ‘90s — when folks in my parent’s generation were dating — people primarily met through friends, closely followed by coworkers or family. I kind of expected college to be higher up on the list for those decades, considering that was how my parents and many of their friends got to know each other, but it came in around fifth or sixth place the whole time.

So, as we head into the Valentine’s Day holiday, all of this got me thinking of ways this could be impacting us on a local level as a smaller community in a fairly rural area.

We took to our social media accounts to poll our local readership and of those who answered on Facebook, 28% met online, 20% met through friends, 17% met at school or college, 11% met through work or coworkers and 9% met at a bar or restaurant.

We got quite different results on Instagram, with 33% meeting in school or college, 24% meeting through friends, and only 13% meeting online, closely followed by 11% meeting at a bar or restaurant.

I found this to be interesting as our Facebook demographics tend to be primarily folks ranging from ages 30-65, while Instagram is a little younger audience with most of our followers ranging from 18-40.

While obviously our polls were pretty general and didn’t take each person’s age into account, it was interesting to see people’s responses.

My personal observation was that maybe it just means those younger folks on Instagram — a majority of which are probably still in school or college — are currently dating someone they met there. While the folks just a little bit older are having to resort to other measures to find romantic connections.

So I guess this all just begs the question of whether or not people are happy with this change in the ways of meeting or not.

I’ve heard from many of my single friends who have used online dating that they did so because they basically ran out of options in their immediate circles and didn’t know how else to meet anyone.

Looking through various studies online, it seems there are mixed reviews from people with some expressing frustration with dating apps and how it can feel like trying to find a needle in a haystack. While others appreciated how it expanded their possibilities, either from a lack of connections in their community or because they struggled with meeting people in person.

Courtesy / Pixabay

According to nearly half of Americans polled said it had gotten harder to date in the last 10 years. The majority of single and looking women said their top difficulty was finding partners who met their expectations and wanted a similar type of relationship, while men primarily cited difficulty approaching people.

found that things got even more challenging during the pandemic, with seven out of 10 people saying their dating lives weren’t going well. that it had some positive effects too, citing more serious relationship outcomes and lower sexual violence due to the ability to better vet people online ahead of meeting.

In general, both studies confirmed that relationships seemed to become more purposeful during the pandemic era, as the fleetingness of life served as a wake-up call to many single or dating adults. Researchers also found that during this time, dating apps played an increasingly important role in connecting people who may not have otherwise met.

So, is online dating helping us in the midst of challenging times when we are relearning social skills and coming out of a phase of isolation? Or is it a shield people are hiding behind to avoid getting out of their comfort zones and plugging in with those around them like generations past were forced to do?

While I don’t have the exact answers to those questions, all of this concluded for me that there’s no right or wrong way to find the love of your life.

Maybe reading through my ponderings on these interesting facts about the modern era of dating can motivate you to think outside the box and connect with someone in a new way during this season of love.

Annalise Braught is a photographer and editor at the Pioneer. She can be reached at (218) 333-9796 or abraught@bemidjipioneer.com.